The whispers had grown louder.
They followed Nimra everywhere — in the rustle of paper, in static on her phone, in the click of keyboard keys. Each sound was a message. A buried truth. A scream in disguise.
She couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat.
Only write.
But this time, the voices weren't just confessing.
They were guiding her.
One name kept repeating:
"The Origin Point… Zubair Colony."
A place she hadn't visited in years — a decaying slum on the edge of Lahore. She had gone there once on a school trip, to distribute food with her NGO.
But now, it called her back — like a wound that never truly healed.
She packed her bag: a recorder, Faizan's old journal, and the cursed USB drive that still contained fragments of the VoxSoul app.
The file inside — VX_CORE.dll — remained locked.
But it pulsed sometimes. As if alive.
She couldn't decode it, but she felt it watching her.
Waiting.
Zubair Colony — 4:32 PM
The air here was thicker, buzzing with forgotten grief. Broken homes, exposed wiring, black water running through the alleys like veins.
As Nimra stepped into the colony, kids scattered. Adults turned away.
No one wanted to be noticed.
She followed the voice in her head — a female one now, fragile and full of regret.
"The first voice. You must find the first voice."
She reached an abandoned house with burn marks on the walls. The roof was collapsed. A rusted metal plate outside read: "House #77."
The door creaked open on its own.
Inside was darkness… and something else.
A cradle.
Old. Burnt.
Inside it, a shattered smartphone.
Screen permanently cracked in a spiderweb pattern. VoxSoul icon still faintly visible beneath the glass.
Nimra picked it up.
The screen flickered.
Then… played a voice.
A young girl.
"Mama locked me in. She said I talk too much. But I only told the truth. I said what I heard. The walls whisper, don't they? But Mama didn't like it. She tried to burn the voices out of me."
The recording ended.
Nimra stood frozen.
This wasn't just a confession.
It was the first recording.
The birth of the chain.
She stumbled back out, breath ragged.
The whispers in her ears turned into screams.
Hundreds of voices layered over each other. Each screaming the same thing:
"Stop the source!"
Nimra collapsed against a wall, clutching her head. The world spun.
And then — silence.
A new voice, clearer than all the rest.
Male. Calm. Older.
"You're close. But not ready. Go to where Faizan was born. The truth sleeps there."
She knew the place.
Sialkot.
Faizan had once mentioned it briefly — his childhood home, the place his sister Rukhsar died. A memory he never spoke of again.
Nimra had thought it was just trauma.
Now she knew it was more.
That was the true origin point.
Sialkot – Two Days Later
It took Nimra hours to locate the house. Overgrown trees had covered most of the gate. Paint peeled off in flakes. The windows were shattered, like the eyes of something that had witnessed too much.
She entered slowly, recorder on.
Inside, nothing moved.
No furniture. Just a dusty frame on the wall — Faizan as a child, standing beside his sister.
They looked happy.
But on closer inspection… something was off.
Rukhsar's eyes had been scratched out. By fingernails. The frame had marks around it, deep and violent.
Suddenly, the USB in Nimra's bag began glowing faintly red.
She plugged it into her portable recorder.
The file VX_CORE.dll opened.
A voice played.
"You've come far, Nimra. But you don't know the real sin. It wasn't Faizan's curse. It was Rukhsar's."
The lights flickered.
Then came a sound that wasn't possible.
Rukhsar's laughter.
Light. Innocent.
Until it turned distorted.
Then a scream.
Then a final sentence:
"She created the first app. And gave it to her brother."
Nimra stepped back in horror.
The implication was monstrous.
Rukhsar had created VoxSoul?
Not the deep web?
Not hackers?
A child?
And Faizan… was the first test subject.
The curse wasn't about justice or vengeance.
It was a game. A child's twisted attempt to make others confess their sins.
Nimra looked around, heart pounding.
She found Faizan's old toy chest in the corner. Dusty, but untouched.
Inside, beneath the dolls and broken electronics… was a tablet.
Its screen powered on — without a battery.
VoxSoul opened.
But the interface was different.
It said only one thing:
"Final Choice. Absorb the Voices or Release Them."
Two buttons.
> [ABSORB]
[RELEASE]
Nimra's fingers trembled.
If she absorbed the voices — would she be cursed forever?
If she released them — would the chain start again?
She thought of Faizan. His sacrifice. The way he vanished.
He must've chosen Absorb.
He became the prison for all their secrets.
Nimra whispered, "I won't let you suffer alone."
And pressed:
[ABSORB]
The tablet screen burst into red light.
Her ears exploded with voices.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Each whispering their truths into her soul, like raindrops burning her skin.
She collapsed to the floor, convulsing.
Her eyes rolled back.
Memories — not hers — flooded in.
A mother burying her baby alive.
A priest locking a child in a confession booth for days.
A teenager laughing as his friend drowned.
Each one fused into her.
She screamed.
And then…
Silence.
When she awoke, the house was still.
The tablet was dead.
The USB was melted.
But her phone screen flashed one final message:
"The chain is absorbed. But the weight is yours."
She stood, broken and changed.
She had become the archive now.
The guardian of every truth no one ever wanted told.
Faizan had begun the journey.
Nimra had ended it.
Or so she thought.
Three Weeks Later — Islamabad
Nimra sat in a small café, sipping bitter tea, eyes on her phone.
She had published a new blog — anonymously — titled The Sins You Never Heard.
Each post was a confession. Each one real.
She was telling their stories.
One at a time.
But that night… her phone buzzed.
A message from a random number:
"You're not the only one who chose ABSORB."
Attached was a photo.
Of Faizan.
Eyes black. A grin not his.
Behind him… dozens of faces. Blurred. Screaming.
And then the message:
"Welcome to the Archive. New players are arriving."
Nimra dropped her phone.
The chain hadn't ended.
It had only just begun.
To be continued…